


prayer for forgiveness

by heyrebelgrrrl



Category: American Horror Story
Genre: Depictions of self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 09:35:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18635503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyrebelgrrrl/pseuds/heyrebelgrrrl
Summary: she must atone for her transgressions.





	prayer for forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: depictions of self-harm and dark themes

“I made bad judgment, Sister,” Sister Mary Eunice managed between sobs. “Miss Winters got me v-very c-confused.”  
  
Oh, oh, oh. Oh goodness gracious. She’s gone and messed everything up. Again. For someone who wants nothing more than Sister Jude’s approval, Sister Mary Eunice just can’t seem to do anything right. Every word that falls from Sister Jude’s lips is like a weight that serves only to pull Mary Eunice further down to drown in her guilt, her tears, her regret. Her very being aches in knowing the trouble she’s caused Sister Jude and this sanitarium.   
  
“Maybe the sin is mine; maybe my faith in you was nothing but the sin of pride. I favored you! I coddled you! I refused to see what others saw! When they said you were STUPID, I said no, simply, that you were more pure than the others.”  
  
Sitting alone in her modest room, Sister Jude’s words echo in Mary’s mind, taunting her to no avail.  
  
Her God is a vengeful God to those who are undeserving and she expected Sister Jude to rightfully administer her punishment for her temporary transgressions, as He would undoubtedly do. With her undergarments down around her knees, she begged and sobbed and oh, how she had tried to willingly, graciously accept her fate through her pathetic tears, a manifestation of her weakness. A reminder of her failure. But once again, Sister Jude had showed her a mercy she’ll never deserve.  
  
It isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last, which is why Sister Mary Eunice has already started taking things into her own hands long before this particular incident.   
  
Sister Jude is known at Briarcliff for her stern hand, but Sister Mary Eunice knows her for something else: her kind heart.  
  
It simply will not do.  
  
Mary Eunice does not have many furnishings in her room but a modest table and a stool and a bed. She’s seated herself at the table long after lights have gone out in this facility, a candle’s flickering warm glow the only light left in her room. Blue eyes clouded with pain and regret stare emptily at the lump of well-worn black cloth upon the tabletop that contains only the tip of the iceberg of secrets Mary Eunice contends with on any given day.  
  
Long gone is her habit, her robes. Head bare, her hair, as golden as the thread Rumpelstiltskin is fabled to have spun, tumbles over her shoulders that have been covered by a simple white shift that may be thought as troublesome for this particular task were it one she’s not already mastered, having performed it tens of times. It’s perhaps the one thing she’s managed to perfect. The only aspect of her life in which she doesn’t stumble. As it should be. She’s asked for forgiveness so many times she’s lost count.  
  
Dainty fingers unroll the cloth with practiced ease to reveal medical equipment bequeathed unto her by Dr. Arden himself. His admiration for her has created a relationship in which not many questions are asked of her, and he was all too happy to be of service. She needed him and he provided. There are times in which she feels guilty until she reminds herself that, like so much of her life, she’s doing this for Him.   
  
Revealed as the cloth unravels are small strips of pristine white cloth, a generous bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a scalpel. Sister Mary Eunice sets the bottle upright next to the basin filled with hot water that she’s prepared and pushes the strips to the side for later.  
  
While she doesn’t fancy herself an intellectual, Mary Eunice is no simpleton. She’s knowledgeable in the longstanding history of the treatment of sickness and more so in the Bible. In fact, if anyone were to ask her—which they never will—where the practice of bloodletting began, she would respond that it began with Jesus.  
  
It was Jesus Christ, after all, who spoke to the disciples, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins…”  
  
All those years ago, it was Jesus who bled for those who had not yet walked upon this earth. He sacrificed his blood, his life, for the sins not yet committed. For her. For Sister Mary Eunice.   
  
Everything must be purified with blood. Without its shedding, there is no forgiveness.  
  
It’s without hesitation her still empty hands pull up the hem of her shift to reveal porcelain skin that looks untouched to the untrained eye, but upon further examination, sleek pink lines mottle otherwise unblemished thighs. The secret is the after care. Not that it’ll ever matter. Not that anyone will ever see these thighs. Her body is a temple and it is for Him and Him alone.  
  
“Dear Lord,” Sister Mary Eunice begins, fingertip trailing along the cool metal of the scalpel along the table. “I am calling upon you today for your divine guidance and help.” She picks it up between forefinger and thumb.   
  
“I am in crisis and need a supporting hand to keep me on the right and just path.” She busies the other with the bottle of rubbing alcohol, carelessly dumping a splash onto the blade and leaving it to pool upon the wooden surface. She’ll have a much bigger mess to worry about than that before the night is through.  
  
“My heart is troubled… but I will strive to keep it set on you, as your infinite wisdom will show me the right way to a just and right resolution.” Her voice catches here for just a moment. Her heart. Oh, her aching heart. Constantly questioning if she is doing the right thing. If she’s in the right place. If she’s strong enough for this work. If she’s worthy.   
  
Sister Mary Eunice has nothing but pure intentions but somehow manages to fall short every time.  
  
This is her penance.  
This is her sacrifice.  
Bleed all of it out.   
Cleanse the body with bloodletting.  
Cleanse the soul with prayer.  
  
She slides each side of the blade across the black cloth to complete her preparation.  
  
“Thank you for hearing my prayer and for staying by my side. Amen.”  
  
The candlelight flickers in the shine of the metal blade as she draws it from its resting place to give it a purpose. It’s cool against her thigh. Thumb and middle finger guide while forefinger provides the pressure required to give a little bite.  
  
This is her sacrifice.  
  
“The Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart has trusted in Him and I am helped. He is not only with me but in me, and I in Him.”  
  
Her voice is nothing but a quiet hush in the deafening silence as the blade pierces her skin and the sickness pours from her.   
  
Again.  
  
“The Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart has trusted in Him and I am helped. He is not only with me but in me, and I in Him.”  
  
It slips through her skin with ease. Like scissors to paper, she tears herself open and bares her ugliness to her Lord, knowing he will accept her and all her faults and give her the strength to face the sunlight of another day.  
  
Again.  
  
“The Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart has trusted in Him and I am helped. He is not only with me but in me, and I in Him.”  
  
Her weakness, red and angry, pours from her like a faucet; it flows down her thighs in such stark contrast to her skin only to fall into the abyss of darkness upon the floor, far from where the light can reach.  
  
A g a i n.  
  
“The Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart has trusted in Him and I am helped. He is not only with me but in me, and I in Him.”  
  
It’s with this time she must choke back a sob and she knows that’s enough. The scalpel clatters to the floor as both hands are raised to cover her mouth, the sadness tearing through her like a violent storm. There is no sight to be found from her two blue eyes. It’s been replaced with nothing but a blurred haze. Sister Mary Eunice doubles over, weeping openly now through wails that are long and low enough to remain contained to her room.  
  
There is a sorrow that has long lived inside of her that she knows she can never share. A disconnect from the rest of the human race. She has tried—she is trying—to find solace in the Lord; to allow Him to fill all of the cracks in her soul with His divine light, but there are days where even that isn’t enough. And she can ignore them, for the most part. Except for nights like these.  
  
She transgresses. She falls. She sacrifices. She purifies.  
Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat.  
  
“The Lord is my strength and my shield,” Mary Eunice sobs into her palms as each and every mistake and embarrassment flashes behind her closed eyes. “My heart has trusted in Him and I am helped.” She is so lonely. “He is not only with me but in me, and I in Him.” She is alone.  
  
And what she’ll soon find out is, at the end of the day, it is her devotion that is her weakness. Her purity is her downfall.  
  
The Lord is her weakness. Her heart has trusted in Him and she is vulnerable.  
  
Tomorrow, He will not only be with her but in her.  
  
She will grow so very weary with Him running through her veins.  
She will like it.  
She will crave it.  
In Him, she will find herself.  
  
And much like He did so many years ago,  
Sister Mary Eunice will fall from a grace she’s worked so hard to obtain.  
  
She will taste His temptation  
and come back for more.


End file.
